Your Business Inquiry-Conversion Costs

Yesterday we talked about direct mail and media advertising. Today, let's talk a little about converting those inquiries and how to estimate your cost per inquiry.

To calculate your inquiry-conversion costs, you must estimate the total number of inquiries you expect to receive or project from those you have already received in test ads. You must also figure out your costs for handling the inquiries. This means opening the envelopes, typing address labels, etc. With Internet Advertising it means double-opting those people that expressed a desire about your product or service.

Your inquiry handling cost costs, for example, might be $40.00/M or 4cents/inquiry. Now multiply that number times the expected number of inquiries to obtain your total inquiry handling costs. Finally, add your total media advertising costs plus your total inquiry handling costs to find your total costs for obtaining all the inquiries.

You now can treat your total inquiry obtainment costs as a list rental cost or the costs for developing your email list.